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€l)e Hew. Ittorgon Jones. 




THE REV. MORGAN JONES 



WELSH INDIANS OF VIRGINIA. 



By 

ISAAC J. GREENWOOD, A.M. 




BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY DAVID CLAPP & SON. 

1898. 



E/0^ 



Reprinted from New-Eng. Histokical and Genealogical Register for Janaary, 1898. 






THE REV. MORGAN JONES AND THE WELSH INDIANS 

OF VIRGINIA. 



Several of the earlier "Welsh poets make mention of one Madog, son 
of Owain Gwynedd, prince of North Wales, who, sailing westward from 
his native country, about the year 1162, discovered a new land, whither, 
some ten years later, he led a colony of his own people. This event ap- 
pears to have been forgotten, when in 1492 Columbus was proposing to 
cross the same waste of waters, and not till 1584 was the account of Madog 
made known to the English public by the Rev. Dr. David Powell in his 
History of Wales. Almost a century later the story was revived in a lim- 
ited circle, by the statement of Morgan Jones, a clerical gentleman then in 
the American colonies, who testified at New York, March 10, 1685-6, to v/ 
his having, some seventeen years earlier, lived for a few months among a 
tribe of Welsh Indians on the Virginia coast; and we continue to hear of 
White Indians, at distant intervals of time and in various localities, until, 
in the early part of the present century, Catlin encounters them on the 
Missouri River, near the present town of Bismark (Dakotah). The Amer- 
ican traveller noted some words, in use among them, akin in sound and 
meaning to the Welsh, and was especially struck by the fairness of their 
skin, and by their very peculiar religious rites. They were then a tribe of 
limited numbers, called the Mandans, whom disease, a few years later, 
swept from the earth. 

Mr. Jones's statement commences as follows : " These Presents may 
certify all Persons whatsoever that in the year 1669,* I being then an in- 
habitant of Virginia, and Chaplain of M. G. Bennet of Mansemouf county, 
Sir W". Berkeley sent two ships to search what was then called the Port 
Royal, but now S. Carolina, which is 60 leagues to the southward of Cape 
Fear ; and I was sent with them to be their minister. Upon the 8''^ day 
of April we set out from Virginia." The writer continues his account, 
mentioning his arrival and departure from the new colony, whence, at the 
end of eight months, half-starved, owing to scarcity of provisions, he un- 
dertook to reach on foot, through the wilderness, the Virginia settlements, 
but only to fall into the hands of hostile natives westward of the great 
swamps. His few companions were evidently tortured and killed, while he, 
liberated by some Indians of the Doeg tribe, was taken to their retreat near 
Cape Hatteras. His freedom he attributes to his speaking Welsh, which 
was also the language of the Doegs, and in that tongue he continued to 
preach the Gospel to them for some months, before proceeding northward. 

At this point a review of such facts as bear upon Jones's opening re- 
marks is interesting. 

* The year is given in the printed documents, " 1660," and is evidently a typograph- 
ical eiToi. 
t Nansemond. 



In pursuance of an Act of Parliament, passed Oct. 3, 1650, the Council 
of State, by commission dated Sept. 20, 1651, sent out to Virginia the ship 
John, Capt. Robert Dennis, and the Guinea frigate, Capt. Edward Curtis, 
the former, with Mr. Rich'^ Bennet, Mr. Thomas Stagge and Capt. W". 
Claybourne being appointed commissioners to raise forces, in said Colony, 
for the reduction of the plantations " to their due Obedience to the Parlia- 
ment of the Commonwealth of England." Capt. Curtis, " in the case of 
mortality or absence of Capt. Dennis," was to take the latter's place as 
commander of the fleet, and to act also as a commissioner. 

Sir George Ayscue, despatched about the same time on a similar errand 
to the AVest Indies, secured the rendition of the Barbadoes, Jan. 17, 1651-2, 
and then proceeded to St. Kits, which place also submitting, though its 
Governor, Capt. Pointz, made his escape to Virginia, Ayscuif sailed for A 
England, arriving at Plymouth May 25. 

In the Virginia colony affairs were peaceably concluded; on March 12, 
1651-2, articles were signed by the Commissioners, Richard Bennett, Wm. 
Claiborne and Edmund Curtis, and on April 30 Bennett* was chosen Gov- 
ernor, Col. Wm. Claiborne Secretary of State, and Capt. John West, with 
twelve other officers. Councillors of State; but at the restoration Sir Wm. 
Berkley, the late royalist governor, was re-established in his former posi- 
tion. 

Gov. Berkley (a younger brother of Lord John Berkley), as one of the 
joint proprietors, had established a separate government at Albemarle in 
the Carolinas, when, some years later, the scheme of Lord Ashley Cooper 
(Earl of Shaftesbury), the most able and active of the Land Proprietors 
of the Province of Carolina, was put into action for making a settlement at 
some point further south; at least "as far south," says Bancroft, "as the 
Spanish would tolerate." 

Accordingly, towards the end of August, 1669, the Carolina frigate, Hen- 
ry Brayne, mr., the ship Port Royal, Capt. John Russell, and the sloop 
Albemarle, Capt. Edward Baxter, which had been fitting out through the 
past two years, sailed from the Downs, with settlers and their servants, 
touching at Kingsale, Ireland, whence the expedition, under the command 
of Joseph West, reached Barbadoes in the West Indies. 

While lying here, early in November, the Albemarle was wrecked, and i 
another sloop was hired through the agency of Sir John Yeamans, of the I 
island, who intended to accompany them. Capt. West writes, Nov. 8, " the 
People here seemingly show a great inclination for Porte Royale." About 
Nov. 23d the little fleet left Barbadoes, but soon after, on account of bad 
weather, all put into Nevis, where a pilot was obtained for the Carolina 
coast, only to be separated, off the main land, and carried in different direc- 
tions. The frigate was forced to take refuge in a harbor at Somers Island 
or Bermudas, and the Port Royal, with Yeamans on board, endeavoring to 
reach the Bahamas, was cast away on one of the islands, Jan. 12, 1669-70, 
and, though all reached shore safely, a number died during their long stay 

* Richard Bennett was in 1641 one of Gov. Berkeley's Council. In 1672 Wm. Ed- 
miindson, Quaker, visited Ameinca with George Fox, and reached Virginia about April. 
During the following month, among other men of prominence, who became converts 
to his preaching at iS'ansemond, was Maj. Gen. Richard Bennett. " He was a brave, 
solid, wise man, received the truth and died in the same." — Week's Southern Quakers 
and Slavery. 

Wm. Claiborne in 1642 was appointed Treasurer of the colony, but appears to have 
been afterwards an officer in the Pai-liamentary forces. 

Capt. Curtis was in the great fight with the Dutch, June 2-3, 1653, and was subse- 
quently in the Royal Navy. 



while building a boat. They finally got to New Providence, where some 
remained; the rest getting passage to the Bermudas, another sloop was 
hired to take them to Port Royal. If we judge rightly of a statement made 
by Richard Bennett and Tho. Goodwin, in their letter of April 28, 1670, to 
Lord Ashley, the Barbadoes sloop, John Baulte, mr., was driven as far 
north as the Nansemoud River in Virginia, whence she sailed early in Feb- 
ruary, and, after some further adventure, reached the Keyawah (or Ashley 
River), May 23, and was piloted in by the Bermudian sloop which they 
met coming out to fish. Bennett's letter states that Sir John Yeamans 
had returned home to Barbadoes, "after he had sent away Capt. Saile, 
Governor to Port Royal," and, he continues, we daily expect some ship 
with news from Port Royal, " upon the arrival whereof we shall comply 
with your orders in buying hogs, cattle, and what else is desired by those 
that shall come for it. In which we shall pursue your instructions and en- 
deavour the best we can for your advantage * * * in the despatch of 
such ships or vessels as is or shall be employed upon that account." 

Meanwhile the Carolina frigate and the other hired sloop, sailing from 
Bermuda Feb. 26, 1669-70, reached their destination safely, and, landing 
first at Port Royal, soon moved up to Kiawah River and began a settle- 
ment called, in honor of the King, Charles Town. In need of provisions, 
the Carolina was despatched in May to Virginia, returning Aug. 22 with 
an eight months supply of Indian corn, pease and meal, while cows and 
hogs arrived within a fortnight from the same quarter; in June the Barba- 
does sloop was sent to Bermuda on a similar errand. 

Col. Wm. Sayle, the Governor,* was a Bermudian, a Puritan, and a non- 
conformist, and his name had been put into the blank commission of July 
26, 1669, as before stated by Sir John Yeamans; writing to Lord Ashley, 
June 25, 1670, from Albemarle Point, he mentions the various needs of the 
colonists and continues: "But there is one thing which lyes very heavy 
upon us, the want of a Godly and orthodox Minister, which I and many oth- 
ers of us have ever lived under as the greatest of our mercys." He then 
recommends Mr. Sampson Bond of Exeter College, Oxford, who, by com- 
mission from the Earl of Warwick and the Somers Island Co., had been 
preaching the past eight years in Bermuda and had been invited to Boston 
and New York by the Governor. From other resources we learn that 
Bond had removed from New England in disrepute for having preached a 
sermon not of his own composition, an act " looked upon," says Hutchin- 
son, "if not criminal, yet highly disreputable." 

The foregoing review tends to show that no historical inaccuracies, as to 
^ his own movements, exist in Jones's statement, which was first given to the 
''public in the Gentleman's Magazine of London, in 1740. Under the head- 
ing. " The Crown of England's Title to America prior to that of Spain," 
Theophilus Evans, vicar of St. David's in Bre^mt, writes: "Sir, That the 
vast continent of America was first discovered by Britons, about 300 years 
before the Spaniards had any footing there; and that the descendants of 
that first colony of Britons, who then seated themselves there, are still a dis- 
tinct People, and retain their original language, is a Matter of Fact, which 
may be indesputably proved, by tlie concurrent Account of several Writers 
and Travellers. I shall first quote a letter of Mr. Morgan Jones, Chaplain 
to the Plantation of S. Carolina, sent to Dr. Thomas Lloyd of Pennsylva- 
nia, by whom it was transmitted to (his brother) Charles Lloyd of Dol-y- 
frau in Montgomeryshire, Eng., and afterwards communicated to Dr. Robert 

*Died in 1671 and was succeeded by Joseph West. 



6 

Plott, by the hands of Mr. Edward Lloid, A.M., Keeper of the Ashmolean 
Museum in Oxford," who in turn had received it from the above Charles 
Lloyd or from his cousin Thomas Price of Llanvyllin, Co. Montgomery, as 
we gather from a work entitled '• British Remains." In this latter book, 
published in 1777 by N. Owen, jr., A.M., the author quotes a letter of 
Charles Lloyd (or Llwyd) esq. of Dol-y-fran, to the effect that Morgan 
Jones was cotemporary with his brother, Thomas Lloj'd, and himself at 
Oxford; that he was of Jesus College, and, to distinguish him from others 
of his name, was known as " senior Jones." 
V The only Morgan Jones, clergyman, of Jesus College, Oxford, likely to 

have written the statement, matriculated June 1, 1636, aged 18, plebeian, 
sou of "John David" of Trevethin (or Trethuen), on the Avon, westward 
of Uske, CO. Monmouth; B.A., Dec. 12, 1639; vicar in 1661 of Undy (or 
Wondye), in the same county, on the British Channel, near Caldicott. But 
Jones, in the statement as to his adventures in Virginia, signs himself *' son 
of John Jones of Bassaleg," a small place on the liibwith, westward of 
Newport, and some miles south of Trevethin, and Calamy in his " Noncon- 
formists' Memorial," Loudon, 1721, notes, among the ejected ministers of 
Glanmorganshire in 1662, " Mr. Morgan Jones, an honest ploughman, of 
Llanmodock," at Whitford Point, though the author indicates his uncer- 
tainty, as to the exact locality, by an asterisk. 

We know, however, that a few miles eastward of Llanmodock, at a place 
called Ilston (near Swansea), the first Baptist church in Wales was formed 
in 1649, with John Myles as pastor, and that at a general meeting held in 
March, 1654, at Aberafon (a branch of the Ilston church), several minis- 
ters, among whom was Morgan Jones, were agreed upon to supply iu 
rotation the pulpit at Caermarthen. There were two of this name present, 
the following September, at the Llantrissent meeting; the names of the 
elders and messengers from Ilston being, John Myles, Morgan Jones, 
William Thomas, Morgan Jones, Henry Griffith, John Davis and Hugh 
Matthews. The first three of these were ejected from their ministry when, 
in 1662, "Black Bartholomew's day" put an end to the liberty of the 
Nonconformists; the others are not mentioned by Calamy and were proba- 
bly dead. Mr. Thomas left Llantrissent, where he was located, and be- 
came a schoolmaster at Swansea, while Miles and Jones fled to New 
England, the former taking with him the Ilston Church-book. 

The other parties, through whose hands the statement passed, were first: 
Thomas Lloyd, for whom it was undoubtedly written. This gentleman ar- 
rived in Philadelphia, Aug. 20, 1683, on the America, Capt. Joseph Wasey ; 
he stood high in the confidence ami friendship of Wm. Penu ; was President 
of the Council; Dept. Gov. 1684-88, and died Sept. 10, 1694, te. 45, leav- 
ing three dai ghters. His age corresponds with that of "Thomas Lloyd, 
son of Morgan L. of Llanbalk, co. Carmarthen, pleb., Jesus Coll., Oxf., 
mat. March 18, 1664-5, aged 15; B.A. 1668; M.A. 1671," &c. Perhaps 
his brother was the Charles Lloyd, M.A., from Jesus College, July 20, 
1657, who seems to have been rector of Cascob, co. Radnor, 1664. 

Edward Lloyd (or Llwyd), natural son of Edward L. of Llanvorda, near 
Oswestry, co. Salop, entered Jesus College, Oxford, Nov. 17, 1682, aged 18: 
succeeded Dr. Plott in 1690 as keepe." of the Ashmolean Museum, and died 
June 1709. He it was who transmitted the document to Dr. Robert Plot, 
who matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford, July 2, 1658, was appointed 
head keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, and died April 30, 1696, aged 53. 
Dr. Plot was au antiquarian, and is said to have been a very credulous man, 



a trait which exposed him at times to the practical jokes of his cotempora- 
ries ; but we should be sorry to classify Joues's " Welsh Indians of Virgin- 
ia " under this latter category and assign it to the rubbish pile of the past. 

What time Morgan Jones reached the American Colonies, after ejectment 
from his ministry in Wales, does not appear, but we meet with his name in 
the Boston Town Records, as follows: 

" Mr. Jones one the 28: 3'" (May), 1666, being sent for by the Select- 
men for keep^ a schoole and being required to perform his promise to the 
Towne to remoue himselfe and famyly in the springe: And forbidetig 
to keep a schoole any longer." 

Notwithstanding these liard measures he found means to make his peace 
with the authorities, for an entry on the records, in 1668, alludes to his liv- 
ing in the house of the Recorder. Mr. John Jolliffe, merchant, and he was, 
in July, one of three witnesses to a conveyance from Mathew Cory to said 
Jolliffe, Lib. V., p. 495. Soon after this, with a view, we may presume, to 
better his fortune, he went to Virginia, in time, as we have seen, to sail 
with Maj. Gen. Richard Bennet of Nansemond Co., as his chaplain in an 
expedition sent, in April, 1670, to Port Royal, or Charleston, S. C. 

His services, as a minister, were evidently not required by the Carolina 
colonists ; he set out afoot, to again reach Virginia, and after meeting curi- 
ous adventures by the way, as has been related, was back in Boston by the 
middle of the year 1671, at which time he was again a witness to some deed 
in which Mr. Jolliffe was interested. 

During his absence his wife, thrown upon her own resources, adopted 
what was then a novel method of livelihood, as we find by the following 
permit of 30: 11"'° January: 167^ — "Mrs. Dorothy Jones, the wife of Mr. 
Morgan Jones, is aproved of to keepe a house of publique Entertainment 
for the selling of Coffee & Chochaletto," — being the first mention of a 
Coffee House in Boston.* The last renewal of Mrs. Jones's license was in 
April 1674, at which time she was accorded the additional privilege of sell- 
ing " cider & wine." 

During the latter year the preliminary Tax List'of the town, for Divi- 
sion No. 4, contains the names of Morgan Jones and his man Isack Rat, an 
error evidently, as they do not occur on the regular list; we find Jones's 
name, however, on the regular list for Division No. 5, with that of his 
man's on the preliminary one. This Isaac Rat, as we gather from the town 
records of the previous year (Nov. 1673), was one of the persons driven 
out of their habitations in New York' when that city was surrendered to the 
Dutch; coming to Boston he liad entered the service of John Kean, who 
kept a cook-shop. 

The Indian, or King Philip's War, broke out in 1675; whether Jones 
took any active part in it is uncertain ; however, his name occurs on the 
Treasurer's accounts, of July 1676, as a member of Maj. 8am' Appleton's 
company, under Lt. Jeremy Swain (of Reading); this was six months after 
the Narragansett Expedition. During the following September he was 
one of the garrison stationed at Marlborough, an important rendezvous for 
the forces until the close of the war. Register, xxxviii., 440-1 ; xl., 320; 
xliii., 266; Mass. Archives, Ix., 97; Bodge's " King Philip's War." 

* Evelyn in his Diary, 1637, mentions the Greek Canopias, who, at the Oxford Uni- 
versity, " was the first I ever saw drink coffee," a fact subsequently mentioned by An- 
thony a Wood in his " Athenaj Oxoniensis." An English Coiiee House was established 
in Oxford about 1650, at the Angel, by one Jacob, a Jew, who opened another, two or 
three years later, in London, in the Southampton Buildings, Holborn. 



By the year 1678 it would appear that Jones was located at Newtown, 
formerly Middleburgh, on Long Island, in the vicinity of New York. 
Bolton's Westchester informs us that, on the 17**^ Dec. 1678, the inhabi- 
tants of Eastchester agree to pay 401. a year to Mr. Morgan Jones, " min- 
ister of Newton," if he will come and live among them and perform the 
offices of a minister. Accordingly he appears thereafter to have officiated 
both at East and West Chester, and rotated around among the different 
places to which he was called, through a period of over ten years. At this 
time King's county, the town of Newtown in Queen's county, Shawkopoke 
or Staten Island, and probably Westchester and Eastchester, constituted 
the West Riding of Yorkshire, as established by the first provincial assem- 
bly which met at Hempstead Feb. 28, 1665. 

On the Westchester records, under date of Feb. 11, 16|f, is noted a bap- 
tism I)y "Morgan -Jons, priest;" a marriage also, performed by him, is re- 
corded the same year. Bolton, ii., 200-1. 

Riker, in his History of Newtown, L. I., states that, on April 3, 1680, it 
was agreed in a town-meeting at that place, to engage the Rev. Mr. Jones 
for one year, the term to date from March 10th, at a salary of 501., and 
" to fit the house up " for his residence which had remained unoccupied 
since the death of the late minister Mr. W™. Leverich, early in 1677. At 
the end of the year difficulties arose about the collection of the salary, some 
refusing to pay the minister's tax, and Mr. Jones preferring a complaint to 
the Co. of {Sessions, the constable was directed that the law be fully en- 
forced. At a town meeting of Dec. 17, 1681, it was decided by a general 
vote, to sustain the ministry by " a free-will offering, what every man will 
give." 

Meanwhile Mr. Jones, in pursuance of a town-meeting, had received a 
call from the people of Staten Island. At a subsequent meeting, the largest 
town-meeting which had yet taken place, held June 19, 1682, by order of 
Capt. Richard Stillwell, Esq., one of II. M. Justices of the Peace, it was 
put to vote whether a Towne-rate be made for " ye satisfaction & paym* of 
Mr. Morgan Jones, who by the Choice & at ye desire of ye Inhabitants 
aforesaid hath Exercised the function of a Minister in this Island this Year 
last past." Whereupon it was carried by 38 v. 31, that the Coiiirs, former- 
ly appointed for such purposes, cause a Rate to be made whereby a suffi- 
cient sum of money, accoiding to agreement, be raised for the immediate 
payment of Mr. Jones, '' and that they take some speedy course that ye same 
may be collected. Ordered that this be presepted to the Court of Sessions." 
N. Y. Col. MSS., XXX., 77. Some persons refusing to make payment of 
this rate, it was, upon motion of Capt. Stillwell, ordered at a Co. of Ses- 
sions, held Dec. 20, 1 682, at Gravesend, in tlie West Riding* on Long 
Island, that the same "be taken from them by distresse through the Consta- 
ble Thomas Walton." N. Y. Col. MSS., xxx., 135. Hereupon Francois 
Martinou and Jno. Boudyn (Jan Boiden) preferred a petition to the Com'*'^ 
in Chief, the Rt. Hon. Anth. Brokholst & the Hon. Council of New York, 
in behalf of themselves '• & the major part of the inhabitants of the Is- 
land." It is more probable, however, that they represented but a few French 
and Walloons, discontented at being obliged to pay an English minister 
whom they could not understand, which in fact was contrary to " the arti- 
cles made with General Nicholls." In their petition, however, they stated 
that they had been ordered, by the last Co. of Sessions, " to contribute 

* The three Kidings of Yorkshire (Noi-th, East and West) was abolished by the Co- 
lonial Legislature, at New York, in October 1683, and shires or counties established. 



9 

towards the maintenance of a certain person called Joanes Morgan a 
pretended minister in orders but by reason of his ill life and conversation 
is much doubted of by ye pef^"; that said order has been obtained, upon 
misinformation, by the warrant of Justice Stillwell without any summons 
given to the petitioners, who are now threatened by the constable " for to 
straine " upon them; wherefore they requested that a stop be made to said 
Stillwell's illegal proceedings, and a hearing of the whole matter be granted 
them, " or otherwise that the same may be remitted by way of an appeal 
to the Co. of Assizes." 

In a long letter of Jan. 19, 168|-, from Staten Island, followed by another 
on the 24th, Mr. Stillwell explains the whole matter to Mr. John West, the 
Secretary at New York. The Justice doubts not " but that the Council will 
take into consideration the abuse which is offered to mee in this false & 
scandalous Petition, where my reputation is soe nearly concerned & my 
authority brought into contempt." The Sheriff further requests " that noe 
Stop may be put to our proceedings in this business ; for Mr. Jones hath 
beene long out of his money; wants it extreamely & tis a greate shame hee 
is not yet paid, having honestly performed his part" (N. Y. Col. MSS. 
xxxi. 3, 6, 9). Stillwell adds that he had never heard " yt Mr. Jones 
was a person so Scandalouse as they represent him, nor do I know anything 
concerning his ordination but from his own mouth, but I believe he was 
qualified as he ought to bee, because he was recommended to us by Sir Ed- 
mund Andross, who I presume would not knowingly encourage soe ill a 
man." 

From the journal of two Labadists, who visited Staten Island in Octo- 
ber, 1 676, we receive accurate information as to the religious status of its 
people at that time, and are quite safe to infer that Mr. Jones was their 
first English minister. These priests state that '" there are now about 100 
families on the Island, of which the English constitute the least portion, 
and the Dutch and the French divide between them, about equally, the 
greater portion. They have neither church nor minister, and live rather 
far from each other, and inconveniently to meet together. The English 
are less disposed to religion, and iaquire little after it; but in case there 
was a minister would contribute to his sufiport. The French and Dutch 
are very desirous and eager for one, for they spoke of it wherever we 
went. The French are good Reformed church-men, and some of them are 
Walloons. The Dutch are also from different quarters." Clute's Hist, of 
Staten Island, p. 212. Some two years later (but prior to Sept., 1678), 
we learn that a lot had been reserved for a minister. N. Y. Col. MSS. 
xxviii. 10. 

We have seen, by the resolution passed June 19, 1682, at the Staten 
Island town-meeting, that Mr. Jones had been preaching at that place for 
the past year; a petition to Gov. Dongan some years later, from the in- 
habitants of Madnan's (or Great) Neck, Long Island, states that "ye greatest 
part of us have Lived upon Madnans necke About twentie yeares and have 
Lived without any ministere Amongst vs and at y*^ first settling of this 
necke it was Consented to by the Inhabitants of hempsted that madnans 
neck people should not pay to any Minister at Hempstead provided they 
would or could maintain one Among themselves and whereas In y'' month 
of June 1682 we entertained one Mr. Morgan Jones amongst us to be our 
minister and were very well satisfied with him, But soe it is, May it please 
your Excellencie, that Mr. Hobart, that is Now Minister of Hempstead, 
Did forbid the said Jones of Liveing Amongst vs, in manner as Aforesaide, 



10 

whereupon he was forced to goe away from vs to our grate Damage and 
our Children." Doc. Hist, of N. Y., iii. 346. 

Jeremiah Hobart (Jeremy Hubard), b. 1630 in Hingham, Norf., Eng. 
(son of Rev. Peter Hobart, after of Hingham, Mass.), graduated at Harv. 
Coll. 1650; preached for some years at Topsfield, Mass., and was called 
in May, 1682, by the Townspeople of Hampstead to be their minister; which 
choice was confirmed by the Com.-in-Chief, Maj. Anthony Brockholst,* at 
New York, April 26, 1 683. Many of his people having become Quakers, says 
Thompson, and others so indifferent on the subject of religion that they 
would contribute towards his maintenance only upon compulsion, he finally 
removed in 1696, a step which was followed in a few years by the intro- 
duction of Episcopacy. 

Meanwhile the first school-house at Eastchester was being erected in pur- 
suance of an order passed at the town-meeting of Oct. 15, 1683, when it 
was agreed that " encouragement be given to Mr. Morgan Jones to become 
the school-master;" any invitation to that effect, however, appears to 
have been declined, for Mr, Warham Mather, a young graduate of Harvard 
College, became the minister for a year. 

Jones now returned to Newton, L. I., agreeing to accept " the free will 
offering " of Dec. 17, 1681, already alluded to, and on Feb. 28, 1684, was 
chosen schoolmaster of that town, "■ to teach on the Sabbath day those that 
will come to hear him," and to be allowed for such service, " what every 
man will please." (Riker, p. 106). 

At the time of Mr. Jones's leaving New England, he had a second wife, 
who, as we learn from the '' lists of strangers in town," visited her Boston 
relatives during the year 1685; for under date of Feb. 5, 1684-5, we find 
" the wife (of) Morgan Jones who lives at New Yorke, at John Matson's, 
formerly the wife of William Cotton, Butch'';" by which it appears that 
Jones's wife was the mother of Mary Cotton, who was born 1660, and had 
married the John Matson above alluded to. 

Sept. 5, 1685, Jones was chosen to succeed Mr. Mather, for a year as 
minister of East Chester. The parish-minister, in the early days of the 
English New York Colony, nourished the soul of the colonial farmer, and 
looked for a spiritual harvest, be it ever so meagre ; he expected, however, 
that the farmer who nourished the soil, and garnered a more substantial 
harvest, would leave some scant gleanings for the poor preacher. Such, 
however, as we have seen, was not always the case; the preacher's debts 
for life's necessities accumulated, and so in March, 1685-6, we have Mr. 
Jones petitioning for relief against the sheriff of Westchester, who, without 
giving him proper notice, had sold two chests of his books and clothes at 
public vendue. (N. Y. Col. MSS.) Moreover, not being able to obtain 
from the people of Newtown the promised compensation for his services, 
he petitioned that the Town might be ordered to pay him his arrears. 
Finally, on the 28th of April (1686), he gave a receipt to the Town for 
anything that he had ever claimed for his services, reserving to himself the 
power of demanding and securing of certain particular persons the several 
sums they had promised him.. 

Some better fortune befel him the next year, when the people of Mad- 
nans Neck (or Great Neck), L. I., dissatisfied with their being so far dis- 
tant from the parish of Hampstedd, " whereof they cannot be so frequently 

* A member of Gov. Andros's first Council, and from the Governor's'departure, in 
Jan. 1681, to arrival of Gov. Dongan in Aug. 1683, acted, by special commission, as Com.- 
iu-Cliief of the N. Y. government. 



11 

instructed in the word of God nor have their children have that education 
they would desire," petition that they may have a minister of their own, 
" whom they are willing to pay and satisfie therein, naming one Morgan 
Jones for this first time to he admitted." June 9, 1687, at a council held 
in New York, his Excel^ Gov. Dongan, Major Anthon Brockholls, et 
omne being present, the Pet" was read and the allegations on both sides fully 
weighed, whereupon "It was resolved that the People of Madnansueck forth- 
with pay to Jeremy Hobbart (minister of Hampsted) all arrears due from 
them to him & that hereafter they may have a minister for themselves 
separate from Hempstedd, whom they are to maintaine, and that for the 
present the same Morgan Jones is admitted, ther to continue dureing his 
Exc'Iy will & pleasure." N. Y. Col. MSS. xxxv. 67 & 88. 

The student, admitted to Oxford in 1636, had now reached his three 
score and ten, " and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet 
is their strength labour and sorrow." And so we hear no more of the 
Rev. Morgan Jones until, some twelve years later, Cotton Mather, in his 
" Ma^nalia," giving some examples of pseudo- ministers, holds up one 
glaring instance to public scorn under the initials of " M. J.," information 
as to whom he had received from one whose name is suppressed. Mather 
states that " M. J.," a Welsh tanner by trade, and sometime servant unto 
Captain P. of Salem, leaving that place went to Say-Brook, where he 
worked at his trade and stole Mr. W.'s leather breeches. Then he preached 
at Killingworth, but, his crime becoming known, they refused to have him, 
and he began preaching at Brainford until a reader, who had formerly been 
employed for Sunday service, charged him with having used a sermon not 
his own. This was a dire offence, as before stated in the case of Sampson 
Bond, and " M. J.," not accepted, took up his staff and scrip and, journeying 
onward, " went to Staten Island by New York, and (again) set up for a 
Preacher, being a ready Prater.". If true that Jones ever preached in 
towns along the Connecticut shore, the year 1677 seems the most likely 
period. As regards Mather's other remarks, it is possible that certain restric- 
tions in the Massachusetts Bay Colony may have handicapped all exertions to 
pursue his divine calling, and if Jones was driven to other pursuits in order 
to support his family and keep body and soul together, it little behooved 
Boston's great, over-credulous Divine to bury the fair fame of a fellow- 
worker in Christ beneath a load of unfounded obloquy and reproach. 

Note. — The Rev. John Myles died near Swansea, Mass., hi 1683, aged 62. He 
was the father of Samuel Myles, Harvard College 1684, and rector of King's 
Chapel, Boston. His successor was the Rev. Lewis Thomas, but the Ilston 
church having been discontinued, Thomas, when liberty of conscience was pro- 
claimed, in 1689, was pastor at Swansea. At his decease, in 1704, another 
Morgan Jones, akin to one of the two present at the Llantrissent meeting in 
1654, was chosen to All the place, and died in 1730. His son, Griffith Jones, was 
in 1726 pastor of the newly formed church at Pen-y-vai, and in 1749 settled at 
Welsh Tract in Pennsylvania, where he died in 1754. He was father of the 
Rev. Morgan Jones, pastor of the Baptist churchat Hampstead, Herts., who re- 
ceived in 1778 the degree of LL.D. from the Rhode Island College (Brown 
University) , and was principal of an academy at Hammersmith, near Loudon. 



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